


no war is enough (to keep me from you)

by robotsdance



Series: the battlefield between us [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Going North, Jaime and Brienne are figuring it out as they go along, Marriage, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Secret Marriage, The Long Night, War, canon divergence- season 7 and 8, consent issues re: cersei/jaime, gazing longingly across battlefields, general warning for past Jaime traumas, late s7-s8 secret marriage au, lovers on opposite sides of a war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-09-28 00:53:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20417174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotsdance/pseuds/robotsdance
Summary: The war goes on and Jaime and Brienne are married.He is Brienne’s husband.And she is his wife.Because of this, things are infinitely better.Because of this, things are infinitely worse.Sequel tothe battlefield between us (isn't here tonight). Secret Marriage AU.





	no war is enough (to keep me from you)

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn’t going to write this but my brain kept chanting “secret marriage au” and I can’t resist a compelling argument like that.

Jaime sees her again.

Brienne.

His wife.

She’s still on the other side of a battlefield.

Relief. (_I am hers and she is mine._)

Then terror. (_From this day until the end of my days._)

It screams through him like truth. Like everything. All at once and always.

And it doesn’t stop.

Never.

Not even when he is so exhausted and overwhelmed he can think of nothing but the frayed edges of every exposed nerve. Not even when he is certain he can’t live like this an instant longer.

In the distance she moves out of sight and he can barely draw breath.

He can’t do this anymore.

*

But he does.

Another day.

And he is here and Brienne is there and there is a battlefield between them.

Relief. _(I am hers and she is mine._)

Then terror. (_From this day until the end of my days._)

This is his life now.

*

The war goes on and Jaime and Brienne are married.

He is Brienne’s husband.

And she is his wife.

Because of this, things are infinitely better.

Because of this, things are infinitely worse.

*

He dreams of her.

*

Jaime wears the strip of cloth on his wrist even though it is grey with filth and threadbare, shredding into nothingness before his eyes. He knows he is being ridiculous but there are times the scrap of fabric is the only proof he has that that night was real. When it feels too distant, too dreamlike, he touches the cloth on his wrist. His left wrist. He could not tie something to his left wrist.

Brienne could.

Brienne did.

This is what he holds on to when there is nothing else.

And there is often nothing else.

*

When he allows himself to fantasize about the war ending it is not victory he pictures.

Win or lose, if the war ended tonight he would run across the battlefield to find her.

*

Every time Jaime sees Brienne he is certain he can’t endure this torment a moment longer. To see her like this. Only like this. Only ever in the distance. Only ever with a battlefield between them.

He can’t do this anymore.

But he does.

He does.

He does.

*

He revisits their wedding night so often he need only close his eyes and find himself there. With her.

“Tell no one,” he’d said to her, somewhere in the hazy afterglow of what they’d done, “If anyone finds out…”

“I know,” she’d said. She was touching his chest at the time, he remembers the feel of her hand against him.

She knew the risks as well as he did.

She knew the risks and she married him anyway.

*

He dreams of her death at his own unwilling hand. An accident. The two of them unwittingly, unwillingly meeting in battle and in the chaos of war it happens before either of them realizes who they are fighting.

He wakes in a panic, chest tight, heart racing, hand shaking.

He used to wonder which of the seven hells would house him with mild curiosity. Now he feels certain none of them will be worse than this.

*

If they die, no one will ever know they were wed. The thought is equal parts comforting and unsettling.

Brienne knows his deepest secrets. Perhaps it was inevitable that she would become one of them.

*

He is bathing when the cloth rips under the added weight of the water. Rips isn’t even the right word. It just releases, the thread no longer enough to hold it together.

He fishes the scrap out of the bath water and lays it out to dry.

*

Later that evening he gathers a needle and thread and sews the shred of fabric to the inside cuff of his leather tunic with clumsy stitches.

The fabric is so thin, so worn, it is barely still cloth, but once it is part of his armour he feels better. That night was real with or without the piece of fabric that bound their souls together, but he’s grown used to the feel of it against his skin.

*

He fantasizes of sending a raven to her. Gets as far as scrawling it on a spare bit of parchment when he should be writing something else:

_Meet me in the woods._

He doesn’t send it.

*

In the twilight between waking and sleep Jaime closes his eyes and Brienne comes to his tent, or he goes to hers. Sometimes in his mind they are back in the forest, another impossible meeting under the stars. The logistics of how they are together don’t matter, just that they are. Together.

If he squeezes his eyes tight enough, works his hand fast enough, he can sustain the fantasy for long enough to finish, her name pressing at the lump in his throat as he comes without a sound.

*

He dreams they send him her head.

He wakes with a jolt, anguish so raw he runs from his tent as if he could see her in the distance despite the darkness. When only the night greets him he heaves and gasps until there is nothing left in his stomach to lose.

When he manages to stand where he trembles the cold sweat of dread is upon him.

He has put her in unspeakable danger. If anyone finds out… if she dies and it’s his fault…

He should never have asked. He should never have hoped. He should never have married her.

He can’t bring himself to regret it.

*

He sees her across a battlefield and he can barely contain his need to weep or scream or buckle under the injustice of it all.

He stands perfectly still and watches her instead.

And maybe it’s his imagination, but he can swear she’s looking at him too.

*

Brienne once entered his camp with no warning. Back at Riverrun she just arrived and announced to the guards that greeted her that she had his sword.

Could it be that easy?

Every passing day makes him more likely to cross the awful space between them and find out.

*

Jaime longs for another night together. More than once he volunteers for a task that has him venturing forth alone. He lingers in the woods, on the outskirts of camp, in the ambiguous spaces between.

He never runs into her.

*

He can’t do this anymore but he hasn’t figured out what to do next. There is still a war. He is still Jaime Lannister. He is still commander of the queen’s forces. He is still loyal to his house… to his sister. But his sister is not his lover. Not anymore.

That distinction feels very important in Jaime’s mind.

*

There is news of casualties on every side. He listens to the list of the known dead for any sign that Brienne was among them. There is none. There is no news.

He stands vigil on the highest ground he dare climb to, watches the enemy camp in the distance for hours.

When he sees her he falls to his knees.

Relief and terror and _I am hers and she is mine_ have blurred into a single emotion.

It is the only thing he feels anymore.

*

He dreams of waves.

*

He gets the raven the following day:

_Return to King’s Landing._

*

More than one person comments on how pleased he must be to be heading home as they travel. Jaime doesn’t know how to answer.

There was a time Jaime wanted nothing more than to get back to King’s Landing. Back to Cersei.

That is not the case now.

The Jaime that wanted Cersei, and only Cersei, feels like distant memory. He prods at that thought as much as he dares while he rides, trying to identify exactly when that stopped being true.

All roads lead to Brienne.

*

He drifts so far into his thoughts the closer he gets to King’s Landing that it is a surprise when he finds himself looking upon the city. He blinks up at the Red Keep. He’s not sure when he went away inside but as soon as he catches sight of the window his son jumped out of he wishes he could snap back to seeing without seeing.

*

The gathering at the Dragonpit Jaime was called back for is scheduled for two days from now. He regrets that he returned so efficiently.

King’s Landing is a lot of things, but it is no longer home.

*

Jaime sleepwalks through the day and lies awake at night.

He hasn’t been to see Cersei since he returned. He doesn’t want to see her. He doesn’t want to see her sitting on the Iron Throne. He doesn’t want to see her in the map room. He doesn’t want to see her in a bedchamber.

He doesn’t want to see her ever again.

*

Cersei comes to him the following morning. Enters his bedchamber without knocking, announces she is happy to see him as she comes over to where he sits and tries to kiss him without another word.

Jaime turns his head away. Says no. Catches her wrist in his hand when she moves in again and pushes her away.

He offers no excuse. No reason. Just refuses her outright.

He says no again.

No.

Cersei is no longer happy to see him.

*

The meeting is tomorrow and Jaime can’t sleep.

His mind drifts to his page in the White Book as he lies in a bed more comfortable than he has known in ages and he still can not seem to will himself to sleep. Finds himself adding to his page in his mind:

_Dismissed from the Kingsguard by King Tommen I. Commanded the crown’s armed forces. Married Brienne of Tarth in secret on the edge of a battlefield._

Jaime does not know what comes next.

*

The moment Jaime sees that Brienne is here at the Dragonpit panic takes hold like never before.

There is no relief. None. Just terror. Blinding, all-consuming terror.

This is not a battlefield. This is much much worse. It never occurred to him that Brienne would be here. Why didn’t it occur to him? Why didn’t it occur to him until it was too late? Because now she is here and so is he and so is Cersei.

Jaime is terrified to so much as look at Brienne. If Cersei sees. If Cersei suspects anything. If she suspects even a little.

But he can’t help himself.

_I am yours,_ he tries to tell Brienne in the briefest of glances, _I am yours I am yours I am yours._

Brienne looks uncomfortable. Uncertain. At best.

_I haven’t touched her_, Jaime wants to scream so that Brienne knows for certain, to reassure her. He’s looking at her now, too hard, too loud,_ I haven’t touched her since we wed… And not for a long while before that._

_I am yours. I am yours. I am yours._

*

He walks past Brienne and it’s agony.

He wants to grab her and kiss her like they’re alone in the woods.

But he can’t.

He can’t.

He takes his seat beside his sister.

*

Brienne’s trying not to look at him too much but it doesn’t matter. Their glances are so loud they might as well be shouting.

So loud and Cersei is right there.

Cersei has killed people for less.

*

He forces himself to look away from Brienne.

Shame fills him in a way it never has before. In all his years, it has never struck him like this.

In the forest he had feared that it might be the last time he and Brienne saw each other. Their wedding night could be their last night. They had known that was possible and hoped it wasn’t true. And thank the Seven it wasn’t. He has seen her across battlefields more times than he wishes to recall since.

Seeing her like this is worse.

More specifically, being seen like this is worse.

In the harsh light of day he is not proud of what she must see.

He is not worthy of Brienne.

He is not worthy.

He is not—

*

He does not want Brienne to see him like this, he realizes. It is too late of course. She’s already seen him. Is still stealing glances at him when she thinks it’s safe (and it is never safe). She sees him. Sees all of him. And this is not the worst of him, but it is close.

This is what remains of the worst of him.

The part of him that stays by Cersei’s side, even now.

Even now.

Even now.

*

They’re proposing a truce. To unite against the dead. A common enemy.

Hope flickers through him at the mention of sending the Lannister forces north.

He tries with all his might not to look over at Brienne.

He fails.

*

Cersei refuses to agree to terms. Refuses to send her army to fight against the dead.

Jaime is not going north.

Jaime is never going to see Brienne again.

*

The meeting ends.

Cersei stands and he follows.

He does not want to, but he does.

Selfishly he prays this is not the last time Brienne lays eyes on him. Her husband. In the shadow of his sister. His former lover. The mother of his dead children. His queen he can not escape.

Then someone grabs hold of his arm and all his senses snap to attention at once.

*

It’s her.

Of course it’s her.

Brienne.

She’s already let go of his arm but every nerve in his body remembers the last time they touched while his brain crashes to a halt in absolute panic.

*

It’s too late.

Cersei has seen them.

*

He falls back in step behind his queen, his head bowed.

The look on Cersei’s face is worse than the one that had Jaime giving Brienne a sword and armour and a quest and sending her as far away from King’s Landing as he could.

*

At the Dragonpit, after the meeting, after she had grabbed his arm, Brienne had asked him to talk to Cersei. To convince her to see reason. To convince her to change her mind.

Brienne does not understand that Cersei does not listen to him, but he tries anyway.

Brienne asked him to.

And it’s the right thing to do.

*

Cersei does not listen to reason.

Cersei does not listen to him at all.

Then Cersei kicks him out of the room.

*

Word comes that Cersei has changed her mind. Tyrion, of all people, convinced her. Jaime is on his feet in an instant, alive with purpose and already planning as he strides towards the map room.

*

When Cersei comes and finds him there, two guards following in her wake, she asks what he is doing.

He’s preparing the expedition north, he tells her.

Jaime is going north.

*

Cersei lied.

She has no intention of sending their forces north.

It shocks Jaime that she would lie like this.

It shouldn’t.

But it does.

He can’t do this anymore.

“I pledged to ride north. I intend to honour that pledge.”

“I saw you talking to that beast of a woman. Did she put you up to this betrayal?”

Anger surges.

“Her name is Brienne. And she is my wife.”

Cersei falters. Whatever she had been expecting him to counter with it wasn’t this, “You wouldn’t. You would never—”

“I did.”

“How could you—”

“I asked her and she agreed!” he spits back at her. How many times had Jaime asked Cersei to marry him? How many times had he begged her to run away with him and just be together, fuck everything and everyone else. Cersei always said that but she didn’t mean it. She never meant it.

How he’d tried to reason with her, once upon a time. If they fled no one would know they were brother and sister. They could marry. They could be together. They could do whatever the fuck they wanted. But Cersei didn’t want that. Not once had she considered it. She wanted many things more than she ever wanted Jaime. For a long long time, all Jaime wanted was Cersei.

_I would have loved you_, he wants to scream, _forever._

There’s grief there. Such grief and anger and despair he is afraid to acknowledge it, lest it take him over and never stop. He gave Cersei everything and it was not enough. Would never be enough. He could die for her, bleed out for her, and it would be no more than what she expected of him. Demanded of him.

Jaime can’t do this anymore.

*

He has seen Cersei angry many many times. He has never seen her like this.

“How dare you betray me by marrying that creature.”

“She’s a woman. And I know,” Jaime says, heavy with subtext worthy of his sister, “With certainty.”

“You betrayed me. Our house, our family, our children.”

“Our children are dead.”

“You belong to me!”

He shakes his head. That used to be true, but it isn’t anymore. Hasn’t been true for a long while. Certainly isn’t true now.

“I am hers,” Jaime says, “And she is mine.”

“So be it,” Cersei says. She glances to the Mountain, “Kill him.”

*

The Mountain draws his sword and loses his head, crumpling to the floor as a massive heap.

A knight in Queensguard armour stands behind him, their sword shining with blood as they hold it pointed towards Cersei.

The knight glances to Jaime, blue eyes finding green from beneath the helmet she wears.

Impossible.

True.

Impossible and true.

Brienne.

*

Time stops.

Cersei is frozen in place. Jaime can see her calculating. If one of her guards has been compromised. There could be more. If she calls for backup…

Both he and Brienne have their swords in hand, pointed at Cersei. There’s uncertainty in Cersei’s eyes. It’s so rare an expression that it takes Jaime a moment to register it for what it really is:

Cersei is afraid.

If one of her guards is loyal to Jaime over her, she can’t call for help without knowing who will come.

A clever plan. A risky one. A plan that will fall apart the moment Cersei realizes who stands beside him.

Jaime is certain Brienne is here alone, and Cersei will know that too if Brienne speaks. If Brienne speaks, Cersei will know.

If Brienne says a word, they are dead.

*

Brienne, thank the gods, says nothing at all in the silence that follows.

She does not need to speak for Jaime to know exactly what she would say as she holds Oathkeeper steady and true:

_I won’t let her harm you anymore._

*

Jaime and Brienne flee the room together.

*

Jaime has dreamed of Brienne many many times, which is how he knows this is not a dream.

He wants to know how. How did she manage this? How?! But he dare not speak. They have only moments to get out of Cersei’s grasp before she regroups.

At least part of how Brienne is here by his side is answered when she pulls him into an empty room, turns a hard left and then slips into a secret passage of narrow stairs.

The Red Keep is full of passageways such as this, but as many of them lead to certain death as lead anywhere useful. Brienne was in King’s Landing barely any time at all. How does she know?

“How?” Jaime breathes, unable to help himself as she turns right and ducks into a smaller branch of the passage.

“Podrick,” she replies.

Jaime never got the sense that the boy had experience doing much more than running to and from the wine cellar on Tyrion’s instruction, but it seems he picked up a little more than that.

“And the armour?” Jaime asks, still taking in the image of her in golden armour, a white cloak. The idea that it is possible she is rescuing him while wearing his own former Kingsguard armour has taken hold despite the odds and is making his heart pound…

“Shhh!” she says, holding her hand out to still them. On the other side of the walls they can hear the telltale sounds of the alarm being raised.

*

Brienne in a secret passageway would be amusing in any number of other situations. She seems simply too big to navigate the narrow tunnel she has led them in, but she is more than able.

There is little she can not do.

*

They reach the larger tunnels below and move a little faster, as fast as they dare while making as little noise as possible.

She beckons him right, but he knows the fastest way out is to the left. He tells her as much in a whisper.

She nods but goes right anyway.

Stashed in the far corner of a dead end is her armour.

*

Jaime is still reeling from everything. From his confrontation with Cersei. From what Brienne has done. Brienne is already shedding bits of stolen armour as fast as she can and replacing it with her own.

“Brienne, you just… infiltrated the Queensguard. The Red Keep itself.” Saying it out loud, even in hushed tones, makes it real, but that doesn’t make it any less impossible.

“I saw how she was looking at you at the Dragonpit,” Brienne replies as she does up one buckle and moves on to the next without a beat of hesitation, “When you looked over at me. When she saw me talking to you… She was going to kill you. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Brienne talks like this. Like she can just will impossible things to happen because she decided that is how they should be. Like she has no idea that no one could find Sansa Stark. That she couldn’t kill Stannis. That no one could protect him from Cersei.

Brienne can.

*

When the armour she wears is her own once again they set off towards the way out.

*

There are horses waiting for them, well hidden but ready.

He barely has time to register the full significance of what she has just accomplished before they are riding north at full tilt.

*

They break from the main road as soon as they are able, and it is only once they are well out of sight that Jaime speaks.

“If Cersei had realized who you were… that you were acting alone. We would be dead.”

“No,” Brienne says, soft but with certainty.

It hits him like a kick to the stomach. He and Brienne were armed and Cersei was not. If Cersei had realized who Brienne was, if she had tried to stop them, Cersei would be dead.

That washes over him as a tangle of emotions he dare not unravel just now.

“Why didn’t you...” he swallows, his mouth is very dry. Stops. Shakes his head. He can’t put that question to her when he can’t answer it himself. _Why didn’t I?_ he wonders. Why didn’t it occur to him?

“I should have… Should I have…” the words feel too big in his mouth, coming out somewhere between a question and a statement.

“You left her,” Brienne says, “That is enough. Jaime, I swear to you, that is enough.”

It doesn’t feel like enough.

But all the same he spends the next long while wondering if leaving Cersei was all he ever needed to do.

*

They stop for the night. She insists on taking the first watch.

He lies right beside her, close enough to feel her leg against him.

She rests her hand on him for a moment. He asks her not to pull it away.

As he dozes he can’t help thinking they are back where they belong:

Side by side once again, moving between wars.

*

When he wakes earlier than expected he sits up to take his turn.

She is plainly exhausted, putting up no protest about her watch ending prematurely as she lies down in his place.

She falls asleep holding his hand.

*

Four Lannister soldiers find them the next day.

Jaime warns them exactly once of what awaits them if they get any closer. The men don’t listen. Why would they? A one-handed man and a woman against four. What could they possibly have to fear?

It is the last mistake they ever make.

*

Brienne moves right, taking out the first man who was stupid enough to try and get on Jaime’s weak side. Jaime drives his sword through the next man who charges at them.

It’s just the smallest taste of fighting alongside her but Gods, the roar in his chest is all-consuming.

The world is the two of them, fighting as one. Not one man gets close. Not one man even approaches touching them before they fall.

Jaime watches her dispatch the last man with a grim smile on his face.

With her at his side no one can harm them.

*

“You were magnificent,” he tells her, breathless and awed. He knows he sounds like a swooning maiden and does not care.

Brienne is all business, wiping her sword clean and sheathing it, “Will there be more?”

“Probably,” Jaime says, “She sent them as scouts. The ones that don’t return will tell her which way we are headed.”

“She already knows…” Brienne says, surveying the dead men around them with increasing pity, “She knows you are going north. You told her.”

“That’s not how Cersei works.”

“We will be more careful,” Brienne says, “Make sure the next group doesn’t find us.”

He nods before they put as much distance between them and Cersei’s men as they can before night falls.

*

They are the furthest thing from safe. They dare not rest for too long. They dare not remove their armour.

They still grab at each other when they stop and dismount for the night, shoving hands under armour in strategic locations to get the job done. It is quick and graceless, little more than grinding against the other’s hand, but it is more than enough to have them collapsing against each other, spent and shaking before she murmurs against the side of his head, “I’ll take first watch.”

*

They could catch the others moving North if they stuck to the road.

They don’t.

Cersei’s men, assuming she sent more than the one group they already dispatched, will be on the road.

“And I need to take you Lady Sansa,” Brienne adds significantly.

She can’t risk taking him to the traveling camp of Stark and Targaryen soldiers.

This strategy is fine by him.

It means he gets to be alone with her.

*

Jaime fled King’s Landing with no preparation at all. He has nothing with him but what he was wearing at the time he left. His armour and his sword. That’s it. And his golden hand, he adds to the list. Hardly a full list of supplies for a journey north in winter.

Thankfully Brienne is more prepared. There’s an old cloak in one of the saddle bags. It’s warmer than no cloak, but not by much.

*

He doesn’t mention that they are fleeing the South, where Cersei definitely wants to kill him, to the North, where Starks and the Dragon Queen will almost certainly want to kill him, to face an army of dead men that will likely kill them both. Brienne knows that as well as he does and there are far more pleasant things for them to discuss.

*

They haven’t seen another person in over two days, maybe three, and Brienne is more relaxed than he’s ever seen her. Not that he has had the good fortune to see her in many relaxing scenarios, at least outside the ones he has spent long hours imagining in great detail.

She’s still on guard, but she’s not on edge, he muses as he watches her in the light of the small fire they have chanced to build tonight. The warmth is intoxicating, both the fire’s and hers, but then she leans over and kisses him and he knows without question which he prefers.

*

It feels remarkably right traveling like this: just the two of them alone in the wilderness, retracing the trajectory of their journey south in reverse.

He wonders what Catelyn Stark would say if she knew Brienne would one day be escorting him back to the North as her husband.

He grins at that thought. Gods she would hate that. Whichever of the seven heavens she is resting in now he hopes she’s properly horrified by the sight of them together.

*

Jaime’s fucking cold. Lying on ground beside where Brienne sits, trying desperately to forget about how cold he is for long enough to fall asleep. He took first watch tonight, which was a mistake, because as exhausted as he is, the night is the coldest its been and his body is rebelling against the idea of lying perfectly still.

He longs for an inn. A halfway decent inn. Even a vaguely decent inn. A room with a place for a fire. A bed. Gods what he wouldn’t give for a bed to share with his wife tonight.

*

Jaime wakes with her cloak draped over him.

He blinks against the hint of morning light, against the unfamiliar but surprising warmth her cloak provides as he looks for her. Brienne is on her feet, not too far away, moving Oathkeeper through its paces. To stay warm, he knows with a pang of guilt, of appreciation. Her cloak is so much warmer than his.

She notices he’s awake as he sits up and she says, “We need to get you a warmer cloak.”

*

It’s another day and a half before they come across somewhere to get him something warmer. A tiny place closer to the main road than they have dared venture in days. Odds are they will have goods for sale. And the odds favour them enough to decide to chance being spotted together.

Before they approach they discuss their strategy at length. Run through a dozen possible scenarios and agree on what they will do if something goes wrong. They plan everything out like they’re about to fight a war instead of buy a cloak.

*

They tie up their horses out of sight of the front door. Brienne throws her cloak around him, making sure it drapes in such a way that it covers every lion on his armour. His beard is coming in, his hair already growing out enough to make him look less like the Jaime Lannister people might be looking for but they are both recognizable at worst, and memorable at best.

*

Brienne handles the transaction politely and efficiently while Jaime discreetly sizes up the other patrons for anyone who might try and kill them. There’s only a handful of people there, all smallfolk by the looks of them, all more concerned with themselves than the two strangers in their midst.

Brienne declines an offer for a room for the night. It’s barely midday, they have to be moving on, but the thought of a warm room with a bed in it has his thoughts traveling in pleasant directions.

Then Brienne casually lies about the direction she is traveling in with her husband and he has to fight to keep a straight face. Neutral. Anything this side of fucking ecstatic would be a victory right now.

He is her husband.

And he’s never heard her say it out loud before.

*

His new cloak is warm, warmer than any he has ever had reason to own before and he is painfully grateful for it as they continue north, the temperature seeming to drop by the hour. He secretly still prefers Brienne’s cloak. It’s warmer, (though not significantly), but much more importantly it is Brienne’s.

When it’s his turn to sleep that night she takes off her cloak and holds it out to him.

He would never have asked. Her offer is unprompted and so genuine it gives him pause, lost for words in the face of such thoughtfulness. And only after he has swallowed the swell of emotion that lodged in his throat is he able to take off his own cloak and pass it to her in exchange for the one she is offering him. 

After that he wears his own cloak during the day and sleeps under hers every night.

It helps.

*

Jaime feels so safe when he is with her.

And it is nothing at all like his father’s gold or his sister’s possession. It’s so unfamiliar that it takes him a long while to identify it, even as it surrounds them every step of their journey north.

Love.

It’s love.

As he’s never known before.

Love not wrapped in duty or cruelty or legacy.

Just love.

*

Snow is falling, fluttering to the ground as fluffy flakes which look too big to be real. This is a significant upturn in weather conditions. It’s still frigid but there’s hardly a breeze at all. After the last two days of sleet and constant wind it is positively balmy.

They’ve stopped by a river to let the horses drink and rest. To let themselves drink and rest. The water is so cold it hurts his teeth.

He can’t take his eyes off Brienne.

Soft sunlight is filtering through the oppressive grey cloudcover of the sky. The world seems to be have its colours muted. The white of the snow covering most everything leaves very little colour left for anything else, just the odd hazy brown of trees, the dark grey-blue of the river moving quickly over stone.

Brienne’s eyes are brighter and bluer than anything in the world, brighter and bluer than anything in living memory. He’s never liked the north, never cared for winter, but now, exactly right now, he can see the beauty in it.

*

It’s her turn on watch and it’s the middle of the night and he’s cold. Tired and cold and awake. He just spent the last four or five hours holding himself upright to stay awake to keep watch and his body is not so quick to adjust to the sudden permission to sleep tonight.

So he’s tired and cold and awake, shifting under the familiar weight of her cloak and trying to get comfortable.

“Tell me about Tarth,” he asks as he looks up at her in the darkness, then adds, “In summer.”

She rolls her eyes but indulges him, describing the sound of the waves and the meadows awash in sunlight as he closes his eyes and drifts in the currents of her voice.

In the distance a wolf howls.

*

He kisses her more and more often the closer they get to Winterfell. It’s too cold to even think about doing anything else, but he finds every opportunity to kiss her with lingering indulgence.

The way she kisses him back keeps the creeping dread at bay. He knows very well what fate might befall him when offered to the mercy of the Starks and the Dragon Queen.

If these are to be his last days in this world they are infinitely more enjoyable than he ever expected them to be.

*

“What?”

He’s staring at her again, a stupid grin on his face. She’s probably worried he’s lost his mind to the cold.

“It’s nothing it’s just… this is more than I ever dared hope for.”

She takes him in, his skin raw from the bitter air, snow encrusted in his beard which has come in greyer than ever, the way his limbs hold tight to his body, tense with the cold as he fights not to shiver uncontrollably.

“This,” she repeats in disbelief.

Icy winds howl right on cue.

“You,” he clarifies.

“Oh,” she says.

*

Compared to the intricate planning they did to buy him a cloak, their lack of preparation for what they will do when they arrive at Winterfell is notable. Hilarious even.

They’re going to arrive together and then speak to whoever they have to speak to.

That is their plan.

That is their whole plan.

*

Winterfell is in sight when he turns to her, “If they are determined to have my head, swear to me—”

“Jaime—”

“Swear to me you won’t—”

“No. I will do no such thing.”

“Brienne. I killed Daenerys Targaryen’s father. I have ruined more Stark lives than you could imagine.”

“No. You are here under my protection. I will protect you. I will.”

He can’t help but believe her.

*

The boy he pushed out a window a lifetime ago is staring at him from across the courtyard. No longer a boy. Of all the people Jaime expected to face in the north, Bran Stark was not one of them.

Jaime grabs hold of Brienne and she turns to him, “Brienne, listen to me, whatever they decide to do you must—”

“I will protect you.”

*

They take his sword.

Then he stands before the remaining Starks and a Targaryen and his own little brother to await his fate.

*

Brienne keeps her distance and holds her tongue. Vouches for him only when he has to. Vouches for him speaking only as a fellow sword, not as his wife.

Bran Stark says nothing at all.

They decide to let him live.

*

“Give him a room. A small one.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Brienne says and Jaime turns to her to try and get her attention, to stop her, to formulate a plan, but she continues, “He will be sharing mine. He is my husband.”

He fights to keep his conflicting reactions to her declaration contained. Fear for her safety is front and foremost but somewhere a little further back is the undeniable amusement at the collection of shocked expressions facing them now.

“I beg your pardon?” Joy is not the emotion the Lady of Winterfell is trying to suppress.

“He is my husband,” Brienne repeats, calm and clear and honest, “He will be staying in my room with me.”

“A word in private Lady Brienne.”

*

Tyrion is at his side a moment later, “It seems congratulations are in order.”

Jaime is still looking at the door Brienne just followed Sansa through, feeling like he should try to follow. Even if he is stopped, it feels important to try. Brienne vouched for him, surely he must…

He catches the eye of the youngest Stark, sitting in his chair, watching him with an impassive look that Jaime understands:

Jaime has a different Stark to answer to.

*

Brienne finds him a while later where he stands on one of the outer walls of Winterfell, looking out across the wilderness without taking in any of the scenery, his conversation with Bran still heavy in his mind.

“You must be freezing,” she comments and he realizes she is right. He does not know how much time has passed since he spoke with Bran. The boy he pushed out a window. Now a man. Now something more than a man. Neither of them the same as they were in that moment.

The tracks he and Brienne made as they approached Winterfell are gone, covered in a fresh blanket of snow. She touches his arm and he follows where she leads.

He becomes more present as they walk, though he is not paying attention to the path they take. He is, however, paying attention to her. Her face is deliberately neutral and he is hesitant to ask how her conversation with Sansa went while they are in public.

She opens a door and he walks through, turns to watch her as she follows him inside and closes the door behind her.

“What did you tell her?” he asks, needing to know if there is a version of the story he must uphold to protect her.

“The truth.”

“That you married me in secret on the outskirts of a battlefield when honour dictated that you should have killed me instead?”

“I told her… I told her that I have loved you every day that I have been in her service. And that if loving you has ever had a negative impact on my service she should dismiss me now. ”

“Every day?”

She flushes slightly, but holds true, “Every day. And many before that.”

“Did she dismiss you?”

“No.”

It dawns on Jaime then, where Brienne has led him.

“This is… our room?”

“This is our room.”

*

So.

Bed.

Then a bath.

Then bed again.

*

When Jaime wakes up as Brienne is getting dressed in the morning he is uncertain what he should do. Immediately but also for the rest of the day. Brienne has duties. She has to see to Lady Sansa. She is already half-way in her armour and looking like someone who would stop the Stranger himself single-handedly if they dared try and harm the Stark girls.

Jaime is very aware that at the moment he is little more than a sleep-tousled one-handed man lounging naked in a warm bed.

Brienne also seems very aware of this fact because there’s colour creeping into her face, though she is trying to pretend that she isn’t affected by the sight of him in her bed. Their bed. He stretches, maybe a tad more luxuriously than he would have without a captive audience, and grins up at her.

“There’s a strategy meeting this afternoon,” she tells him, “They will want you there.”

“They will?”

She is infinitely more certain of this than he is, but he agrees that he would be of use in such a meeting.

“There will be food in the...” she trails off.

“I know,” he says. He’s been to Winterfell before, though under much less favourable circumstances than these. She’s flustered, blinking and pointedly looking away from him for a moment before her gaze slides back over him. He may have let the blankets slip a little further down his torso while she was looking away.

“I’m nearly late,” she says, looking like she regrets having to leave him in this state immensely, “There is fresh clothing over there. And Podrick will help you with your armour when you are ready.”

“Thank you.”

She nods once and it is strangely formal, her more guarded self back in place and ready to face the day. But then she leans down and kisses him goodbye with such tenderness he has to reach out and touch the armour on her body to savour the perfect complexity that is Brienne.

*

Tyrion comes over to him while he’s breaking fast, tucked away in a corner of the hall, to inform him of the strategy meeting in the afternoon. To make sure he attends.

He realizes whose clothing Jaime is wearing mid-sentence and stops talking to gawk at him.

Jaime awaits his clever remark with a smile on his face.

*

Jaime stands across from Brienne in a room full of people that not two moons ago were his sworn enemies and listens to just how dire the situation is.

It is a strange afternoon.

*

They’re lying in bed together after Brienne returned at the end of her day and wasted little time taking advantage of the fact that the two of them now share a bedchamber.

He asks how her day had been, how Sansa had treated her.

“She is still… displeased,” Brienne says, “Rightfully so.”

“You were under no obligation to tell her,” Jaime says, “Then or now.”

“I was under no obligation to tell the woman I have sworn to protect that I secretly married,” Brienne says with wary disbelief. Jaime can feel her about to launch into any number of ways to describe his position in the war and the world as someone Sansa would be less than thrilled to have her sworn sword marry but she thinks better of it and says only, “You.”

Jaime feels himself smiling at that, “You did, didn’t you.”

“I did,” Brienne agrees, “But you asked me to.”

“That I did,” Jaime says leaning over to kiss her, “Has anyone asked you who married us?”

“No.”

“Me neither,” Jaime says thoughtfully, “You were quite worried about that.”

“Not worried,” she protests, “Just… aware.”

He hums, leans in to kiss her again because he can, “You really did think everything through.”

“One of us had too.”

“I thought about it plenty.”

“Before or after you accidentally proposed?”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

“I saw your face when you said it,” Brienne says, “That is not what you meant to say.”

“It wasn’t what I meant to say, but it was what I meant,” Jaime says, "Exactly what I meant."

*

Popular opinion, which is rapidly becoming accepted fact, is that he and Brienne married on their journey north. The timing fits. They could have easily found a sept somewhere along the way, or else ran into a traveling septon.

It was what Lady Sansa had assumed when Brienne first announced they were wed and Brienne had not burdened her with the correction.

*

Northeners hate him. They want to hate Brienne for marrying him, but few manage it. She holds on to their hard-earned respect.

Some hate her for having the honour to marry him.

They find it a lot harder to spit ‘Kingslayer’s Wife’ like an insult.

It’s just true.

*

It’s strange, Jaime muses over the following days, to not be constantly in Brienne’s company. On their journey north they had been together day and night, with only fleeting and increasingly infrequent reminders that other people even existed. Just him and Brienne alone together in the wilderness, the great spaces between. To find himself in the middle of a castle preparing for a siege, to be around anyone other than her, is disorienting.

It shouldn’t be as hard as it is, adjusting to not being at her side all day. For years they did not see each other at all. There was a time he only ever saw her from a distance, endless battlefields between them. That was obviously much worse than this. And he still sees her often. In the morning when they wake up, and when they have their evening meal and when they retire to their bed for the night and often many times throughout they day as they both go about their duties.

He still finds himself missing her when they are apart.

*

They’re walking back from the yard. Brienne had been working with Podrick and Jaime had been practising while watching Brienne. She had been magnificent. So magnificent that Podrick had managed to tactfully step aside so he and Brienne could spar with each other.

He’s revisiting a particularly good section of their fight in his mind with a bounce in his step when Brienne leads them to the building that houses spare equipment so she can put away the practise swords she had been using with Podrick. 

It takes him all of two heartbeats to realize they are alone in there. His arm is still feeling the clash of valyrian steel against valyrian steel, the power of their swords meeting still humming through him.

He says her name, not trying to hide the desire in his voice, and she turns to him and he moves to close the distance between them—

A soldier walks in and pushes past them to return the targets he had been using, barely sparing a glance at them as he does so. But Jaime has already leapt back from her, instinctively trying to project his sudden interest in the stash of practise swords as sincere.

The soldier leaves without another look at them. But only when he is out of sight does Jaime feel safe enough to look back at Brienne, thoroughly appalled by his reaction to the interruption, his apology already forming in his head.

But when he looks over to Brienne to apologize for pulling away from her like a startled rabbit he finds her standing further from him than he remembers her being. She’s looking at a pile of discarded lances with a keen interest he recognizes exactly. He trips into his apology anyway, determined to make sure she knows his reaction had nothing to do with her and everything to do with him, but it comes out as a mess so he has to stop. Take a breath. Try again.

This time all he manages to express is, “I still fear they will kill you if they see you with me.”

“They know we are married.”

“I know,” he sighs, frustrated with his body for betraying him like this. He’s only ever known what it is to love in secret. Rationally he knows that the people around them know they are wed. He knows that. But a lifetime of secrets live in his body and muscle memory is not so easy to change. He reached for things with his sword-hand long after it was severed from his body.

“Before…” he says, trying to explain without saying too much, “If anyone saw me with her we were dead. Our children were dead. That was always on my mind. Always.”

“Jaime…”

“Even when you and I wed…” he continues, needing to get the words out. He doesn’t like the comparison he’s about to make but that doesn’t make it any less true, “If the wrong people found out…” He forces himself to swallow the panic on his tongue. “For me the consequence of known love has always been death. So I don’t know how to love like this,” he admits like a broken thing as he gestures between then, “Openly.”

“Do you think I do?” Brienne asks him then, quiet but genuinely curious, “Do you think anything in my life has prepared me for what it means to love you? To be loved by you?”

He had not considered that. He should have, but he has not.

“No one loved me before you,” she continues, talking to his shoulder instead of his face, “Even courtly politeness was not without ridicule. Everywhere I went it was the same. The same jokes. The same insults. There were… wagers…” 

Jaime has heard of the wagers she had to endure but is even more horrified by them now, hearing the pain in her voice she’s trying to mask the extent of from him.

“Love was for other people. They see me with you and wonder how a man like you ended up with someone like me.”

“They would be fools to think that,” he says, reaching out to hold her hand.

Brienne scoffs but doesn’t pull away, “That’s all they think.”

“I doubt it,” Jaime says, and when it looks like she means to refute him he continues, “I am certain they look at us and can’t figure out how you ended up with me and not the other way around. You. Brienne of Tarth, honourable beyond question, keeper of oaths, even impossible ones, returned to Winterfell married to the Kingslayer, Oathbreaker, enemy of the Starks, two of whom you are sworn to protect, known lover of his own twin sister, a man without honour. And you married me. They see us together and wonder why you would dishonour yourself with me.”

“They have no idea,” Brienne says quietly, “They have no idea…”

“No,” Jaime agrees, thinking of how remarkable she is, how unfathomably lucky he is, “They do not.”

*

They aren’t any good at acting like a married couple around others, but they are excelling at being a married couple when they are alone together. That night they make the most of their privacy.

She calls out his name louder than she intended. Far louder. Jaime is delighted, unable to hold his tongue as he kisses her inner thigh and murmurs, “Thank the seven everyone already knows we are married.”

She looks mortified for a moment but can’t sustain it. Her body is still slack from release, her gratitude overriding her embarrassment by a considerable margin. He privately vows to have her looking at him like that as often as possible.

*

Adrenaline courses through him the first time he takes her hand in full view of anyone who cares to see after their evening meal.

Nothing bad happens.

She gives his hand a reassuring squeeze in return.

*

They get better at it. Sitting beside one another at meals, standing alongside each other at meetings, being in each other’s space when other people are around, in his case looking even more hopelessly in love than ever before. No one bats an eye, though Tyrion occasionally rolls his.

It becomes routine. Loving her. Being known as her husband. Sharing a room and a bed and everything.

*

They train together as often as they can, usually right after the strategy meetings. Having to stand still and talk and think, think of all of the ways they are likely to die, makes Jaime need to move.

So they move.

Out in the yard they make each other better. Push each other harder. Knock each other down and help each other up over and over and over.

They train until they know each other’s style as well as they know their own. They train so that when the time comes to fight back to back they will do so knowing how the other moves without thought.

In the strategy room he’s almost certain they will die, but here in the yard with swords in their hands it’s easier to imagine that, just maybe, they will find a way to live.

*

Brienne gets up after their morning meal to see to Sansa and Jaime watches her until she is out of sight. When he turns back to Tyrion, who is seated across from him, his brother is looking at him intently.

“What?” Jaime asks.

“I’m missing something,” Tyrion says, “You and your wife still look at each other like you share a secret. But everyone knows. Everyone in the whole castle knows.” He gestures to the folks around them. The wildling with bright red hair is watching Jaime looking particularly put out, “I can’t figure out what it is. You are married, aren’t you?”

“Oh yes,” Jaime says seriously, “Absolutely.”

“She’s not with child already, is she?”

“No.” They have been careful, as much as Jaime wishes the impending war didn’t mean they had to be.

“So what is it?” Tyrion ponders.

*

A little while later Tyrion delicately inquires about the specifics of the happy occasion.

Jaime grins.

He neither confirms nor denies a place. A time.

And all of a sudden his brother understands that the secret between he and Brienne is _when._

*

Tyrion does not ask Jaime about his wedding directly again, but he must be asking around, because over the next few days there is increased speculation about when Jaime and Brienne got married that wasn’t there before. There are already a handful of popular theories:

They married at Harrenhal. Either the night before the incident in the bear pit, or else right after.

They married in King’s Landing, after Jaime was returned.

They married on any number of the days they were alone together that no one could track, either traveling south all those years ago, or else as they moved north.

They were married at Riverrun is a popular theory, though Podrick quietly disproves that one to those who will listen. Podrick himself is far from certain when they wed, but he knows it wasn’t at Riverrun. It is obvious he puzzles over whether it was before or after.

Only once does Jaime overhear someone suggest that they actually married after they arrived at Winterfell. The young man was shot down before he could finish his sentence. Brienne says they were married by the time they arrived so they were married by the time they arrived. She had no reason to lie about that when she announced they were wed (and in fact had many reasons to lie). But she told the truth. So no matter when Jaime and Brienne were married, everyone understands with absolute certainty that they were married by the time they arrived in Winterfell.

Jaime and Brienne say nothing on the subject. Few are bold enough to ask directly, and those who do get no helpful answers in return.

“It was a lovely night,” Jaime offers after a young squire asks him in the yard, “Wouldn’t you say?”

A little ways away Brienne knocks down the person she is instructing.

“Lovely,” Brienne agrees.

*

“I heard a new one today,” Jaime says as they are getting ready for bed. He’s already taken off the tunic he wore all day and pulled on an old one of Brienne’s to sleep in and is taking off his boots as he sits on the edge of their bed.

“If it’s the one where you snuck a septon into the Dragonpit, I heard it yesterday,” Brienne mumbles against the pillow.

Jaime grins. He hadn’t heard that one yet. It’s still not as farfetched at the one he did hear though. “Apparently we were married by Lady Catelyn herself, the night she sent us south.”

Brienne lifts her head from the pillow, as if questioning if she heard him right. “She loathed you,” she says, half-asleep and genuinely confused by this suggestion. It’s so endearing Jaime can barely stand it. Then she adds, “So did I.”

“I loved you from the start.”

Brienne snorts at that declaration, no doubt remembering their first few weeks together. She playfully pushes him away before pulling him close, letting him taste the amusement on her lips.

It’s not quite true, that he loved her from the very beginning, but the more he thinks on it, the more he understands that it’s not quite untrue either.

*

“Do you want to get married?” Jaime asks suddenly, all but sitting bolt upright as the thought occurs to him very early one morning.

“We are married,” Brienne yawns from where she lies to his left. She doesn’t even turn to look at him, still more asleep than awake.

“I mean in a sept. With guests and a septon and a feast afterwards,” he clarifies, “Because we could, if you wanted to.”

She does turn towards him then, rolling over while taking care to keep the furs tucked closely around her chin as she yawns again. She opens only her left eye at first, as if her body is not yet convinced she needs to fully awaken to have this conversation. He watches as she wakes up enough to look at him fully.

“Our wedding was more…” she pauses and he gives her time to consider what she wishes to say, curious to know what word she will choose, “Fitting than I ever imagined a wedding could be.”

He smiles. Relaxes. She’s right of course. Their wedding was theirs, entirely and completely theirs. Few are so lucky.

“You were stunning that night,” he says, letting his eyes drift closed to remember it more vividly, “In your armour. Absolutely stunning.”

She mumbles something in response that he doesn't quite catch, but then she snakes her arm around him and shifts a little closer under the blankets.

Jaime settles against her and understands exactly what she's trying to say.

*

Brienne still touches him like she can’t believe she gets to and that alone is so much that it is often a struggle to hold himself back and gods the feel of her around him and the little noises she makes when he’s inside her and the way she says his name when she’s almost there and then again when she reaches between them to push herself over the edge as pleasure overtakes her body and the way she asks for more and gives him permission to finish all at once and and and—

He pulls out and spills onto her stomach with a desperate sound he could not contain to save his life. Then he’s sprawled slack and boneless on top of her, unable to do much more than try and catch his breath as he comes back to himself, dimly aware of his seed between them.

They haven’t discussed children. Not beyond that single question she asked him about their potential marriage when she thought he was joking. Regardless, now isn’t the time. Not for the discussion, and certainly not for children. 

They’re stealing moments from a war they’re right in the middle of. A war they both know how unlikely they are to survive.

Her hand trails up his arm and then rakes down his back as she murmurs quiet words of gratitude in a tone of voice he only ever hears her use when they’re like this.

At least the war is no longer between them.

*

They are the only ones out in the yard at this hour. Dawn has barely broken but there they are, twin swords in hand, practicing until he can close his eyes and know exactly where she will be three steps later.

It is a dance.

And they know every step.

*

Jaime approaches Sansa one day when Brienne is training with Arya. Or rather, he approaches her guard who is not Brienne and asks if Sansa would be willing to speak with him. The guard checks and confirms that Sansa will see him. Briefly.

It is clear Sansa has not warmed to him much.

“It’s about Brienne,” he begins and the warning that flickers across Sansa’s face tells him exactly how much his continued existence depends on Brienne’s fondness of him. But then he says, “I’m going to knight her,” and Sansa’s expression softens considerably.

“She deserves it.”

“More than anyone,” Jaime agrees. He’s been thinking about this for days, trying to figure out the best way to make it happen, and the best he has come up with requires Sansa’s help, “I would like you and your sister to be there, if you are agreeable.”

“It would be an honour Ser Jaime.”

*

Arrangements are made quickly and quietly. Sansa offered to help gather those who need to be present, which Jaime appreciates because when the Lady of Winterfell requests someone’s presence they are inclined to obey without demanding a reason.

Jaime has already informed Podrick that he needs to be in the Great Hall at dusk (the boy agreed without hesitation).

Tyrion is another matter.

“Come to the great hall at sundown,” Jaime tells him for the second time.

“Are you going to tell me why?”

“You’re going to want to be there.”

*

There are more people in the hall than Jaime expected. Only Sansa and himself know why they’ve gathered, but Sansa has gone above and beyond the few people Jaime suggested she invite. Arya and Podrick are here of course, as is Tyrion who watches Jaime’s arrival with curiosity. Jon Snow is here, standing beside Sansa, as is Bran, who Jaime glances at but looks away from quickly. The rest of the people Jaime recognizes from the yard, from the council meetings he has been attending, from Winterfell at large.

Brienne enters the hall asking Lady Sansa what she needs. Jaime is grateful Sansa agreed to summon her. It’s so simple a thing that meant he didn’t have to come up with any sort of reason to bring her here.

Sansa welcomes Brienne and then steps aside to give Brienne an unobstructed view of where Jaime stands in the middle of the room, framed by their guests standing in two rows on either side of him.

There are questions in Brienne’s eyes. Jaime can see her silently asking them. She said she didn’t want another wedding, so she knows it’s not that, but everyone in this room is here for a reason. For her.

Jaime draws his sword.

“Lady Brienne, kneel.”

Now she understands.

*

Brienne looks afraid in the worst way. Like she can’t help but assume this is a cruel joke. But it is not. He would never, never do such a thing. And if he did every single person in this room would kill him for it in a heartbeat. Arya would get there first, but it would be a close race. Tormund would definitely put in a good showing.

Jaime watches Brienne process this. Watches her come to the understanding that this is for real. That this is for her. Her eyes are shining and she hasn’t looked away from him once since he drew his sword.

He nods slightly.

She kneels.

When she rises she does so as a knight.

*

It’s the sound of Tyrion announcing her as “Ser Brienne of Tarth” for the first time and the applause that follows that breaks the spell between them. From the moment she knelt before him until she turned to smile at the people cheering for her the entire world was just the two of them. He’d wanted witnesses for her, she deserved them, but in the moment, his sword steady in his left hand, tapping her shoulders in turn, saying the words with a weight he has felt in his voice only once before, there was no one else in existence.

Just the two of them.

Knights of the Seven Kingdoms.

*

Jaime sheathes his sword and stands back to watch Brienne receive her congratulations. They’re all so happy for her, so proud of her. And she was knighted here in the halls of Winterfell, in the presence of the two Stark children she was sworn to protect. 

Brienne deserves it.

*

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she admits to him afterwards, much later when they are alone in their room.

His heart breaks that she feels the need to thank him for doing what any half-way decent knight should have done years and years ago.

“You don’t need to,” Jaime insists, “There is no one more deserving of knighthood than you. No one.”

“I never thought…” Brienne falters, unable to look at him and get her thoughts into words at the same time, “I didn’t dare hope it was possible.”

*

That night they lie in their bed and she tells him stories about her past he’s never heard before. Stories that come out slightly jumbled and unpractised, like she’s never told them to anyone before.

And later, when she starts undressing him, he can’t help himself, “I’ve never slept with a knight before.”

Brienne considers this, her fingers still working the laces of his tunic, then she says, “I have.”

He loves her so much it hurts.

*

The news the following day is not good. The army of the dead is close.

In hours or days.

War will be here.

*

The sun sets.

*

Battle is hours away. Preparations have been made, as best as all of them could manage. There is nothing to do but wait for it to begin. To wait for it to end. The last Jaime saw of Brienne she was talking with Podrick. He had left them to it, not wanting to interrupt whatever last words she had for her squire before the battle. She had glanced at him and nodded as he ducked out of the room so he knows it is only a matter of time before she comes to join him.

*

Jaime is with Tyrion, settled in by a fire with a drink at the end of the world when Brienne enters. Jaime stands, meaning to offer her a chair to join them but the look in her eyes has stopped him in his tracks.

“Go,” Tyrion implores him.

Jaime does not need to be told twice.

*

They steal away to their room and are at each other the moment the door is closed. Armour is removed without ceremony or order, strewn around them in a jumble, both of them desperate to get him inside her for what they are both aware is likely the last time.

“Please,” Brienne keeps saying, wanting and needy and wonderful, “Jaime, please.”

When they finally make it to the bed it is fast and frantic and just this side of brutal. How alive they are, he marvels as she grabs at him and asks for more, and harder, and yes, and Jaime. Jaime Jaime Jaime.

Brienne, he answers as he pounds into her, gives her exactly what she asks for, draws pleasure from her as she arches up against him and calls out his name with stunning abandon.

*

Afterwards, there’s still time. Somehow, they’ve still got time.

*

The second time, the last last time, is so soft, so slow, that time itself seems to release its hold on them.

His chest against hers, skin to skin, her hands touching him everywhere she can reach as they move together as one.

One heart. One flesh. One soul.

They all but sob from the magnitude of it.

*

Jaime and Brienne stand shoulder to shoulder on the walls of Winterfell, waiting for it to begin.

There is a battlefield in front of them.

And relief and terror and _I am hers and she is mine_ are still there, but it’s different.

Different because Brienne is here beside him.

Different because the battlefield is no longer between them.

Even facing impossible odds of survival, Jaime infinitely prefers this.

*

The night is already unnaturally dark, unnaturally long.

As they wait Jaime remembers the other night he longed for exactly this. When he begged the stars to linger, to give him just a little longer with Brienne at his side.

Their wedding night.

Perhaps she is thinking of it too, because when he glances over at her where she stands to his right she is looking over at him, a gentle expression on her face.

Battle is moments away. Certain death not far behind. But when he dies, he will die beside her.

He’s not sure which of them moves in first, but it doesn’t matter because they’re kissing and thank the seven for it because he would regret it forever if they didn’t. And it’s inappropriate and he doesn’t give a fuck. Not one fucking care in the world. He and his wife and everyone in this castle are going to die and he’s going to kiss her one last time while they’re both still breathing.

Brienne breaks the kiss but stays close, so very close, speaks to him the way she once did in a forest clearing, back when they were the only two people in the world as the sun rose, “Stay with me.”

It’s a command and a promise and a plea all at once.

A purpose.

He nods.

_Until the end of my days_.

*

The dead attack and Jaime and Brienne fight.

Back to back. Side by side.

One warrior in two bodies, wielding two halves of the same sword.

It’s glorious.

Glorious.

*

The night is beyond long.

The dead keep coming, so they keep fighting.

Still back to back. Still side by side.

Still one warrior in two bodies, still wielding two halves of the same sword, even though their muscles scream in protest, even though catastrophic exhaustion is held at bay only by their constant momentum.

For now, they are still alive.

*

Later, much later, long past the point of endurance, Brienne is still on her feet. Still alive. Still fighting.

Jaime is right beside her.

*

When the dead fall and do not get up there is a long moment in which no one trusts it is over. Jaime doesn’t dare take his eyes off of the mass of bodies that surround him and Brienne, still not letting himself hope that it is real. That they are alive and it is over.

But time stretches onward and the dead are just dead.

Then it is the living’s turn to collapse.

First on the battlefield, Jaime and Brienne closing the space between them with a stagger and then holding each other upright as they sway with shock and fatigue.

And again once they’ve dragged themselves back to their room and can think of nothing but sleep, dropping face-first on to the mattress in tandem.

When they wake they will cling to each other and weep with unfiltered relief that they are both still alive. Fuck fast and slow and hard and soft and everything in between, astounded to have the opportunity. Put on clothes that are not suits of armour only to remove them and start the process all over again.

But for now they sleep.

*

The sun rises.

*

The war against the dead is over but there is much to do. Less for them than for others. Those moving south have precious little time to rest. Jaime and Brienne are not among them so they busy themselves helping put Winterfell back together.

*

Word comes from King’s Landing: Cersei is going to lose the war.

_Come at once_, the news seems to whisper, Cersei’s voice in his head, _It’s time to die brother._

But Brienne’s voice is there too, speaking the same words that kept him on his feet and fighting and keeping her from harm as she did the same through the long night:

_Stay with me._

It’s so easy a choice to make that Jaime doesn’t register it as a choice at all.

*

Far in the south, Cersei dies.

Alone.

In the north, Jaime lives.

*

It is strange, especially at first, to know that Cersei is dead.

His whole life was Cersei’s after all. His whole life was Cersei’s until he met Brienne.

He does not know what he is feeling, just that it is less, far less than he thought it would be.

*

Cersei is dead and the war is over and for the first time in a long time Jaime has time to think. To process. There is simply not enough to keep his mind from starting to parse through everything he’s tried to bury.

He tries to keep himself busy, especially when Brienne is otherwise occupied, putting in long days of helping wherever he can. Preferably something physical. Something to wear him out by the end of the day.

When he can’t find something to do he finds himself alone. Today he’s sitting on the floor of an empty guest room, his back against the bed. He has no recollection of how he got here or how long he’s been staring vacantly at the fire in the fireplace he must have started when he arrived.

A knock. Then the door creaks open and he looks up.

“If you want to be alone right now I’ll go, but you don’t need to hide from me,” Brienne says, soft but straightforward, “I know who I married.”

He wants to laugh at that but he can’t. Can’t do anything more than wordlessly nod, his gaze back on the fire.

“Do you want me to leave?”

He shakes his head no.

She sits down on the floor beside him. Is quiet with him for a long while. Then says, “You are allowed to mourn what you’ve lost.”

She’s giving him permission to grieve. For Cersei of all people. Another unthinkable kindness. He has no idea what to say in the face of such understanding.

“I’m not sure the Cersei I loved ever really existed,” he says after a stretch of silence, “What do I have the right to mourn?”

“Everything,” Brienne says without hesitation, “Everything that haunts you.”

He thinks of his son, gasping and clutching at his throat.

He thinks of his daughter, dying in his arms.

He thinks of his son, jumping from a window.

And Joffrey was cruel. Crueller than Cersei with none of her cunning. But Myrcella and Tommen were good. They were decent and kind and they did not deserve what happened to them. They did not deserve what Jaime could not protect them from.

His children. The children he loved but barely knew. The children he sired but never fathered.

Did he give them to Cersei or did she take them from him? And what difference could the distinction make now? Their children are dead and buried. It is too late.

“The children,” he says, his voice sounding nothing at all like his own, “Cersei never… she never let me hold them.”

It sounds monstrous, spoken aloud like that. He feels her pity in the way she touches his arm, like what he said was something anguishing and not just a fact of his life. The price he had to pay for their safety. Not that it was enough.

“Never?” Brienne repeats quietly. She’s not questioning him, just an acknowledging what he has said. Like that possibility had never occurred to her.

Never is a horrible answer. To never hold one’s children is a terrible thing, but somehow the truth is even worse. Jaime can barely make himself say it.

“Once.”

*

He has never spoken of what Myrcella and he talked about right before she died. He’s spent all of the time since trying to forget it ever happened. Because to acknowledge what they had discussed, to let himself feel what she had said to him…

He’s shaking with grief by the time he manages to tells Brienne what Myrcella already knew.

“She said she was glad,” the words are like shards of glass tearing at his throat as he forces them out, “That I was her… that I was…”

When he can no longer speak Brienne holds him while he sobs.

*

They watch Sansa Stark be crowned Queen of the North.

“You did that you know,” Jaime whispers to her afterwards, “She’s queen because of you.”

Brienne brushes the remark aside, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

*

The wars are over but there is still much to do.

But for the first time since he has known Brienne, there is time to think and talk about what they want to come next.

For the first time since he has known Brienne, there is time to breathe.

So Jaime breathes.

For maybe the first time in his life, Jaime breathes.

*

The first hints of spring have come before they once again find themselves traveling south together, another Lady of Winterfell sending them on their way.

*

They stop at an inn for the night. In a few days they will be on a ship, sailing for Tarth, but for now they are in the corner of an unremarkable inn, just two more travellers sipping ale after their meal before they turn in. The place is quite full tonight. People from all over crowded around tables, taking in food and drink and each other’s company. There’s a growing group in the opposite corner that keeps breaking out into song.

Jaime is lost in thought, the noise of the place blending together and fading out of focus. He registers the shift in tone from the table of revellers as they switch from an old war song to a slower ballad he does not know only distantly.

He’s thinking of Brienne. Of them. Of what they’ve survived. Of where they are and where they’ve been and where they are going. Of how he’s still half-afraid he will be ripped from this life and put to death for daring to find happiness.

He’s thinking of the child they are now officially trying to have.

“Do you hear that?” Brienne says as she touches his arm, jars him from his musings on how impossibly lucky he is, “I think they’re singing about us.”

Jaime tunes into the noise around him and listens to the lone voice coming from the corner.

_They rode to the North,_   
_Together at last,_   
_To fight for the living,_   
_Their honour steadfast._

_But he was a foe,_  
_Of the wolves in the North,_  
_So to keep him alive,  
_ _She had to let it be known, henceforth:_

_That they had married in secret,_  
_Though the war drew a line,_  
_But the words they had spoken:  
_ _I am his and he is mine._

_And the North was not happy,_  
_That their sword loved who she did,_  
_But at the end of the day,  
_ _They let them both live._

_No one knows when they married,_  
_Not a soul knows where,_  
_Some claim it happened,   
__Right over there._

_And they could have been married,_  
_For a year or a moon,_  
_But if you ask me they married,  
_ _Not a moment too soon._

_For their souls, they were bound,_  
_Long before words were spoken,_  
_And once they were married,  
__They could not be broken._

_They fought like the warrior,_  
_Come to life as two souls,_  
_It’s truly no wonder,  
__That the dead felt the toll._

_And the living, how they marvelled,_  
_Not even the gods dare offend,_  
_And the wars of the land,  
__Somehow came to an end._

_Because they married in secret,_  
_When a war drew a line,_  
_But the words they had spoken:  
_ _I am hers and she is mine._

Jaime looks over at Brienne, utterly beside himself with delight, “What did I miss? How did the beginning go?”

“I wasn’t paying attention,” she says with a neutrality he doesn’t quite believe, “There was a verse about the bear in there somewhere.”

“I should hope so,” Jaime says, loving her, loving every moment of this, “Sing it for me.”

“I will not.”

“Why?”

Brienne turns her head slightly away from him, “I don’t remember it.”

He's so amused he can't help but tease her a little, “Liar.”

She turns back to him, tilting her chin and watching him intently, “You doubt me?”

He leans in a bit closer, softens into her space as he smiles, “Not for a moment.”

It’s too loud to hear the little hum of acknowledgement she makes at that, but he can see it in her body language. He’s enjoying this too much to let her get away from this that easily so he turns to the group which is now singing a rowdy drinking song at full volume with a thoughtful look, “Perhaps I’ll ask them to sing it again.”

She touches his jaw, turning his head with the slightest of gestures so that he’s once again looking at her. Holds him there with her gaze until he’s forgotten about everything, everything but her. 

And only once she’s certain she has his complete attention does she casually announce she’s ready to retire for the evening.

Jaime grins.

The song can wait.

*

Jaime and Brienne are standing side by side on the main deck of a ship. The sunlight is warm and the wind is favourable. His hand is beside hers on the railing, close enough that their fingers are touching.

They look across the waves to the horizon.

The battlefields are behind them.


End file.
